Ballot Count Update

With several state legislative races still too close to definitively call a winner and vote totals that haven’t moved since election night, plenty of candidates and voters alike want to know when we will know more.

Calls to the Alaska Division of Elections (DOE) this afternoon weren’t helpful. They are still saying they have no idea how many absentee-by-mail, questioned, and early vote ballots have yet to be counted in any given district.

What we do know is there are 7,767 uncounted questioned ballots statewide. That means on average there are 194 in each house race. That combined with a likely equal number of uncounted absentee-by-mail ballots in each district means there are still enough ballots to conceivably sway the outcome in the races in District 22- Rep. Charisse Millett vs. Pat Higgins (45 vote margin), District 25 – Rep. Liz Vazquez vs. Jason Grenn (123 vote margin), and District 27 – Rep. Lance Pruitt vs. Harry Crawford (121 vote margin).

DOE will begin counting those ballots tomorrow and again Friday according to this schedule:

According to that schedule, we should have a pretty conclusive answer to whether Crawford and Vazquez have any hope of a miracle comeback by the end of the day tomorrow. The race between Millette and Higgins is so close Friday’s count will likely be needed to get a final answer.